“There is nothing more

that I can say or lose”MOTHERHOOD AND MENTAL INSTABILITY IN TWENTIETH

CENTURY AMERICAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE

Shannon KreinerSenior Honors Project, English Department

Mentors: Leona Sevick, Tom Bligh22 April 2015

Project Focus

Study of gendered experience in the context of American social history for a specific group of women and the articulation of their experience

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” Sylvia Plath’s “The Fearful” and “Morning Song” Anne Sexton’s “The Double Image” Marsha Norman’s ‘night Mother

Charlotte Perkins Gilman“The Yellow Wallpaper”

Published in 1893 after Gilman’s own experience with “nervous prostration” and the rest cure depicted in the text.

Gilman’s explicit intent was objection to contemporary women’s psychological healthcare.

“It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman“The Yellow Wallpaper”

“He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another… I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.” Gilman uses setting to make the protagonist’s patriarchal confinement

absolute.

“It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight… I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.” The protagonists’ identity becomes fused with the confined woman and her

diagnosis.

Sylvia Plath“Perfection is terrible,

it cannot have children.”

Plath viewed perfection as a full commitment of her unchanging self, power, and talents to the creation of art.

Plath’s conception of the static perfect self came in direct conflict with the expectation of motherhood.

Sylvia Plath“The Fearful”

She hates

The thought of a baby—-Stealer of cells, stealer of beauty—-

She would rather be dead than fat,Dead and perfect, like Nefertit

Sylvia Plath“Morning Song”

Plath did have children, and the obligation to become a mother despite her self overwhelmed her. Plath viewed commitment to this role as surrender of her self.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floralIn my Victorian nightgown.

Anne Sexton“The Double Image”

Sexton’s early trauma and mental illness isolated her from her own mother. Sexton did not begin writing until after the birth of her first child, but her

poetry bears the scars of a damaged relationship that informs her ability to mother.

I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.

And she never could. She had my portraitdone instead.

Sexton’s mother could not engage with her daughter’s identity, so she rejected it.

Anne Sexton“The Double Image”

Sexton wrote poetry as a means to ground and invest herself in reality.

Sexton also sought identity in “ideal womanhood.” Sexton’s ability to mother was inhibited by her trauma, her

relationship with her mother, and her post partum depression.

I, who was never quite sureabout being a girl, needed anotherlife, another image to remind me.And this was my worst guilt; you could

not curenor soothe it. I made you to find me.

Marsha Norman‘night Mother

Norman wrote ‘night Mother in 1983 because she felt the cultural conversation on mental illness and suicide needed to be changed.

Norman chose the setting of a mother-daughter relationship to show the way that mental illness affects even the most intimate bonds.

One way Norman highlights these effects in role reversal between mother and daughter.

Marsha Norman‘night Mother

While Jessie moves through the night calmly, Thelma exhibits signs of a tantrum: You’ll miss. You’ll just wind up a vegetable.

It’s your own sweet fault… I guess you think they’ll all have to talk about you now.

I’ll sing till morning to keep you alive, Jessie, please!

Marsha Norman‘night Mother

The play received critique because of its blunt discussion of suicide that some critics argued bordered on advocating the act.

What emerges in closely reading the text is evidence of Jessie’s worldview, which is entirely removed from the goal of self-preservation to allow suicide as a logical choice.

Jessie: It’s exactly what I want. It’s dark, and it’s quiet.

Thelma: So is the back yard, Jessie! Close your eyes. Stuff cotton in your ears. Take anap!

Learning from Our Mothers

Thank you!